Legend of Tokyo Yoga, Leza Lowitz
Introducing Leza Lowitz, the legend of Tokyo Yoga.
You can see me working things through here as new information comes in from Leza - it’s one of the things I love about these conversations and these legends - what I learn. New ways to think and feel through life.
There’s so much richness in Leza’s story - from the American Mid-West in Iowa, to Key West, Florida then Berkley California, this is a story of the ages. An American story that lands in Japan then continues to evolve.
There are many ways to lead a life.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ― Viktor Frankl
Leza has a unique perspective on life, having lived many different economic, racial and cultural chapters in her life, which makes her have a unique appreciation for the many many ways to lead a life. This, I believe is what gives her gravitas, authority and agency; knowing that with the right mentors, encouragement and opportunities, and the ability to follow those, you can build and create in your life. We cover so much in this conversation from the Vietnam War to the 6 perfections of Buddhism, business, writing and motherhood - it’s all in here.
How she ended up going to the same school as Kamala Harris, where she saw Maya Angelou speak
How her tumultuous childhood was a calmed as she was introduced to meditation, then an Okinawan Martial art that planted the seed for her move to Japan
How when she was pushed to her limit she was made to understand what you she was capable of
We talk about being a victim and how we truly are victims in our stories and how we CAN emerge and move forward and retell our stories
Access to amazing mentors and people to believe in you is essential to pull people toward their potential
The influence of philanthropic people and how her sister took that idea of community into her Medical practice
We discuss the addiction to struggle and drama - do you have struggle addiction? We are reminded of the Goo Goo Dolls `You bleed just to know you’re alive’
Get into your body - getting embodied and getting out of the fight or flight and into the rest and digest ‘within my body there’s a city’
The trance of unworthiness, the culture of adoration, rest and digest
The journey to Japan and how she continued writing and that opened doors to Japan’s most prestigious university
The small voice that told her to open a yoga studio, And that same voice that told her that there was a child waiting out there for her. The strong call to motherhood
How her yoga studio didn’t take off until she really settled into it herself - and THEN how she ended up on a famous Japanese comedy show!
How to rebel within the cultural framework of a different country - and how grateful to Japan we are
On mentors and even more importantly ACCESS - I was reminded of the great need for mentors and access to people who can show us the next step. Leza describes for us how one such mentor shows up in her life, at a time when there was economic and personal struggle in her life and she was an outsider at school, a boyfriend’s mother, a concert pianist who was studying for a PhD, noticed something in her and said she should go to university. Without that - who knows, the Legend of Leza Lowitz may have read very differently.
I have been lucky enough to have always been expected to get an education, and had the abundance (or should I say access to my parent’s abundance and a couple of small inheritances) to go to university without much financial or emotional stretch. I never underestimate the access to people who can push your imagination out from your edges - to show you how.
Sometimes scarcity mindset isn’t really scarcity mindset - it’s just straightforward scarcity.
Or lack of access.
Or edges.
It’s not even a lack of imagination - it’s simply that the edges of our experience can influence the edges of our imagination.
I can look at Kim Kardashian and imagine her life - but the edge of her life is far from the edge of mine. But if I actually MEET someone and go to their house and see them actually doing something with great abundance and with the mindset of abundance and generosity, then I too can stretch the edges of my imagination. I have CONTEXT. If we are raised in this context it can feel like normal. This I suppose is privilege. When we don’t recognise our context. The water we swam in or swim in. I can see that.
I can also see my edges and I can push my imagination past those edges to truly embrace the next level of abundance and generosity that is available to me. And recognise when I am close to it.
I hope to offer this to other people too - in coaching to give context, understand where scarcity mindset is JUST SIMPLY THAT THEY ARE DESPERATE BECAUSE THINGS ARE ACTUALLY SCARCE.
This actually happened to me when I asked a client about abundance mindset and they completely broke down and said they were desperate after all their work had dried up - ACTUAL SCARCITY. I changed tack and of course it didn’t last long - this client is committed and brave and she just went right ahead and started making the changes she needed to to get back into the swing of things. BUT without the context or the mirror or the knowledge that our imagination has no limits but it does has context - we can be the person who offers different context and expands people’s edges. But not by shouting into the void about abundance mindset but by showing and offering new and available contexts.
Leza’s story helped me with that - understanding the simple notion that we can have nothing and someone else sees something
Leza reads her poem ‘Grace’ for us. It’s so beautiful and such an honour to hear her read her own words with such devotion. (I’m not crying - you are).
It has recently been the anniversary of the the 3.11 and we have a frank and emotional conversation about that experience and the experience of the people in the North. Still the deep deep embodied experience we all had that day and in the past ten years as these memories are stored in our bodies, our nervous systems and our hearts. From that experience, Leza wrote her book Up from the Sea.
Lovely Leza…
Leza Lowitz is a best-selling writer of over 20 books. She’s received the PEN Josephine Miles Poetry Award, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, NEA, NEH, California Arts Council and SCBWI Work-in-Progress grants, the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Award, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award for Jet Black and the Ninja Wind (Tuttle), with Shogo Oketani. Recently, she published a YA novel, Up from the Sea (Crown) about Japan’s 3-11-11 tsunami, and a memoir about adopting and adapting in Japan, called In Search of the Sun (Wandering Mind Books). She’s written for The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Japan Times, Art in America, Yoga Journal, Shambhala Sun, and Best Buddhist Writing. Lowitz is also a beloved teacher of yoga and meditation, and owns Tokyo’s Sun and Moon Yoga (est. 2003). She has trained thousands of Restorative yoga teachers.
Links
Lezalowitz.com
https://www.sunandmoon.jp/
Books by Leza
Up from the sea
In Search of the Sun
Yoga Poems
Yoga Heart
Victor Frankl - between stimulus and response…
The sacred pause
How do I want to respond to this in a kind way in a loving way…